Take-Your-Child-to-Work Day
A short story by Dan Church
As they picked their way through the tropical undergrowth, Kunhatsin asked her father, "Do we need to be worried about snakes?"
"Just watch where you step," he answered. "Snakes don't consider people as prey; they'll only attack us if we surprise them and they think we're attacking them. They're like most of the wild animals; they don't normally see us either as a threat or as food. They hunt each other for food, but they've never seen people hunt animals since we don't eat them."
"But the Burners ate animals, didn't they?"
"Yes, but the last Burners died over four thousand years ago. The wild animals don't have that long a memory."
The archaeologist Takwari had decided to take his daughter to work with him during her school vacation. She had not only shown interest in her father's work, but she was also disturbed by the lack of real information about the Burners she was getting in school. Since Takwari would be spending most of that period working at an important Burner site, in the middle of a long peninsula that had only fairly recently emerged at the southeastern corner of Tupiland, it seemed logical to take her along. She was old enough to be a real help in the manual labor, and he could answer her multitude of questions as they worked. And, frankly, he could use the aid and companionship; his grant was a very small one that didn't allow him to hire the dozens of helpers (mostly students) that other professors used at their extensive digs.
The primary reason for the small size of his grant was, he knew, because of his unorthodox theory about the site. It was an extremely large complex that archaeologists had already examined without coming to any agreement in explaining its unusual nature. It was remarkably similar to two other complexes that had previously been studied near the western shore of northern Tupiland and not far from the western shore of northern Ndombeland. All three sites, better preserved than most because they had been under water for millennia, were large elaborate cities, but obviously places that many thousands of people simply visited rather than living there. They revealed an astonishing variety of architecture and decoration, mimicking the buildings found not only in many parts of the world but also in many different periods of the Burners' history. Yet all indications pointed to the conclusion that they were all built during a very short span near the end of the Burners' last era. Takwari was convinced, unlike his colleagues, that these were religious complexes of great importance.
"See all these buildings around the outskirts of the complex?" he asked Kunhatsin. "Burners lived in them, but only for short periods of time. These were temporary lodgings for visitors, not permanent residences. We can tell that from the way they were designed. What we don't know for sure is why so many came to visit this place."
"And you think you can find the reason. Right, papa?"
"I already have a pretty good idea. But we're going to have to uncover something that will convince the others that I'm right."
The pair had just arrived at a place where the vegetation was not so thick, apparently the remnants of an ancient road leading toward the center of the complex. Ahead Kunhatsin caught glimpses of elaborate buildings of varying styles, dominated by a large stone structure with several tall crenelated towers. The girl was amazed; unlike her father, she had never seen the picture of ruins of Ndombeland castles built long before the last Burner era.
"What kind of building is that?" Kunhatsin asked.
"It looks a lot like the fortresses that the Burners built in northern Ndombeland, but it obviously isn't a defensive building."
"Why not?"
"Well, first there's nothing to indicate that people actually lived there. Besides, it looks like a stone castle, but those aren't stones. It was built with some man-made material that looks like stone but isn't nearly as hard as stone. It would be destroyed immediately if warriors attacked."
"Then, how has it lasted so long?"
Takwari was, as usual, impressed by his daughter's intelligent curiosity, which he tried to satisfy. "It's not hard like stone; that's true. Yet even stone gets worn away by the elements over a long time. All natural materials will eventually break down and return to the earth. But this material is like many others that the Burners made; it's extremely durable and doesn't break down the way natural materials do."
"My science teacher says that the accumulation of those man-made materials had a lot to do with why the Burners' civilization disappeared."
"Yes, it's ironic; one of the very things that brought about the Burners' downfall is what allows us to study them today. So much of what they made, especially in their last era, is still around for us to examine. They couldn't easily destroy what they no longer used, and it eventually crowded them unbearably. And it is still there. Of course, there aren't nearly as many of us; we aren't crowded as they were."
"Is that because there are almost always just two children in our families? Did the Burners' have more?"
"Yes, they had more, sometimes many more. Overpopulation was another of the causes of their disappearance. And most people think that's why we've had a taboo against large families for as long a anybody can remember.
"In fact," Takwari continued, "most of our laws and regulations are based on old taboos and superstitions and legends concerning the Burners. Even today, one of the main reasons for studying the Burners' culture is to learn from their mistakes, to avoid their fate. Our ancestors learned a lot from them, but they lived apart from them and didn't learn everything. And a lot of what they did learn was lost over the years. We kept the taboos and superstitions, but we didn't always know the reasons behind them. We learn new things all the time to help us live better, but we learn a lot of them from the past too. And often new scientific knowledge turns out to be the real explanation for the old taboos and helps to keep us from making the same mistakes the Burners did."
"Like not burning?" Kunhatsin said, with a twinkle in her eyes that showed she knew what the answer would be and was savoring it in advance.
"Our legends taught us that the Burners' almost destroyed the earth by burning. They burned everything they could, even 'the bones and the blood of the earth,' according to the elders. Now we know that those old stories were true, that they burned not only the trees and other plants but also rocks called coal and uranium and carbon-based liquids and gasses that they pumped from deep in the ground. Practically all their energy sources came from burning."
"And when they had burned everything up, they disappeared," said Kunhatsin.
"Not really. They did come close to exhausting all their energy sources, but it was the burning itself that did them in."
"Surely they didn't burn themselves up?"
Takwari laughed and then explained, "No, the burning ruined the air. It became unhealthy to breathe. But even that wasn't the whole cause. You know how the old legends say that the Burners were punished and destroyed by a great flood?"
"Of course. When the ocean drops and reveals a place like this, doesn't that prove that the flood was real?"
"Yes, of course. But our modern knowledge has shown us the real reason for the flood. All the burning made the world get warmer and warmer."
"Because of the heat of the burning?"
"No. Because of the smoke from the burning. The products of the combustion accumulated in the air and created a kind of layer of insulation that kept the earth's heat in and wouldn't let it escape. Then, as the earth got hotter, the ice in the north and in the south melted and ran off into the ocean. When the water level rose and covered most of the Burners' great population centers they were crowded into less and less space. But they still kept multiplying, even though there was less and less land to live on and less and less land to grow food on. Yet they hung on to all their old bad habits. They were crowded closer and closer together and they starved and they died of diseases ... but they kept on burning and producing children until their civilization could no longer sustain itself and collapsed. Eventually they all disappeared."
Suddenly, Takwari stopped talking and listened carefully.
"Come here!" he shouted. He grabbed his daughter's hand and pulled her with him through the doorway of a ruined shop that bordered the ancient road. They had hardly gotten inside when Kunhatsin too heard what had startled her father, a kind of low rumbling that was coming closer very quickly.
"It's all right to look out the window, but don't go outside," Takwari said.
The girl gazed out and soon saw a herd of wild pigs rushing along the road.
"One or two of those beasts aren't very dangerous; but when a whole herd of them gets excited and stampedes like that, they can trample and kill you without even realizing that you were there."
"But what made them stampede?"
"It could have been practically anything; they're jittery and excitable animals. Maybe an alligator attacked. Or it could have been just a noisy parrot. Luckily for us, they make so much noise that we usually have time to get out of the way."
As soon as the herd had passed, Takwari and Kunhatsin emerged from the building ruins and continued down the road. In the distance, they could see three other very large structures besides the castle, a metallic sphere, a building designed to look like a huge tree, and a an enormous cone tipped toward one side with a flat structure at its base that made in look like a gigantic pointed hat. Within a few minutes, the archaeologist was pointing out many other elaborate structures that didn't look at all like the normal buildings, that obviously weren't habitations or shops or eating places. He brought his daughter closer to show her that most had some sort of track system, and there were still a few strange looking vehicles that rode the tracks deep into man-made tunnels or high in the air on intricate scaffolds.
"Where do all the tracks lead?" Kunhatsin asked.
"Nowhere. They just go around a circuit and wind up back where they started."
"Then what were they for?"
"They took the people on exciting, scary rides, but brought them back safely where they started from. Most archaeologists think that their only purpose was to provide thrills. I think, though, that they are closely linked to the real reason for this entire complex."
"How is that?" Kunhatsin was consciously playing along with her father; she knew that he was eager to explain his theory to her.
"If I'm right that this was a religious complex, then it's purpose was the training of missionaries to spread the religion around the world. The various areas mimic the foreign lands the missionaries would be traveling to and provide a sort of orientation and training ground. These contraptions, then, are connected to a rite of passage of sorts; they served in an initiation ceremony. The would-be missionaries were exposed to discomfort and danger, because their missions would involve discomfort and danger. The weak were weeded out, and the strong became stronger in their determination."
He pointed to an entrance gate to one of the curious structures.
"See?" he said. "There is Burners' writing on the gate. If we could read it, we could probably know for sure what purpose it served."
"Hasn't anybody ever figured out how to translate their writings?" Kunhatsin asked.
A sad expression took control of Takwari's face as he answered, "No, and nobody ever will. Even though there are millions of remaining examples of their writing. You see, our ancestors didn't develop there own writing system until many centuries after the Burners disappeared. So no one will ever find a written text that contains a translation into any of our languages. They had many languages too, and even different writing systems. But they're all a complete mystery to us. Well, not an absolutely complete mystery. We have figured out the meaning of a few of their signs. But not nearly enough to be much help in deciphering the rest."
"What signs have been figured out?"
"The most important discovery was a text that served to teach counting and the rudiments of arithmetic to Burner children. By studying it carefully scholars were able to figure out their number signs. Actually, that brought about a great scientific achievement. We learned that the Burners' number system was based on ten; we adopted it and found that it made calculations much easier than with our ancient five-based system."
"I guess that's because you can use the fingers on both hands instead of just one to count things," Kunhatsin said laughing, She was a very good math student and had immediately grasped the many advantages a decimal system showed compared to any other. "What other signs has anybody deciphered?" she asked.
"Well, there were also books with words and pictures that were used to teach children how to read. We've learned some of the Burners' words for things from them, but not nearly enough to allow us to figure out much about their languages. And there are signs are used alone, not in words, for their symbolic meaning. Let me show you some that are very important for our work today."
Takwari took her by the hand and led her to sit on a barnacle-encrusted bench. He removed his backpack and took out a notebook and a pen before sitting beside his daughter.
"There are certain signs that show up in the architectural details of religious buildings. We are sure that they represents the religions themselves. For example, this one is the oldest and must represent the religion that was established before the others." On a blank page of the notebook he drew the sign:
"But that's actually a pretty uncommon one. Later religions were apparently more widespread. A somewhat later one used several variations of this sign." Under the first sign he drew:
"And then, only a little later, came this one."
Z
"It's fairly clear that those three religions dominated the Burners' culture for about two millennia. And then, during the last years of the Burners, a new faith, apparently very different from the others, spread through the world. It's sign is like this." At the bottom of the page, Takwari drew:
M
"The worship buildings on which it is found are much smaller than those of the other religions, but there are many more of them. And, while there are geographical concentrations of the first three, these seem to be spread pretty evenly all over the earth, wherever the Burners lived in large numbers. Apparently, this religion's rituals were unlike the others' in that people didn't come to worship in large numbers on specific days. They came singly or in small groups at various times. That's why the buildings could be so much smaller. In fact, most of them were designed so that the worshipers could simply drive by and accomplish the ritual without even getting out of their vehicles."
The archaeologist then turned the page to another blank one and said, "Most scholars think this sign is based on one of the Burners' letters - this one."
M
"There are two overwhelmingly common words that start with that letter, and one of them is probably the name of either the religious movement or the god." Takwari then painstakingly wrote out the two words:
MONEY
and
MICROSOFT
"But they can't agree on just one of them. Neither has been found more often than the other. In fact, there's a professor at a university across the ocean in Ndombeland who claims that both words mean the same thing. I don't guess we'll ever know for sure."
He put the notebook and pen back in his backpack, stood up and beckoned for his daughter to follow him. They seemed to Kunhatsin to be wandering aimlessly through a maze of buildings, but her father remembered the circuitous path that led to a relatively open space, obviously the main plaza of the complex. As they walked, often having to use their tools to clear the underbrush from the path, Kunhatsin wanted to know more about the Burners.
"So the Burners' were in both Tupiland and Ndombeland?"
"Yes, but during most of their time there were more of them in the northern parts than in the southern parts. There are migrations of people in all periods. You know that our ancestors gradually moved from the southern parts into the northern parts long after the Burners disappeared. The same is true of the dark brown people who are native to Ndombeland. At any rate, during the Burners' era there were massive migrations from Ndombeland to Tupiland in the later periods."
"Why? Was there more land in Tupiland?"
"Well, sort of. It was apparently very sparsely populated when the migrations started. But, actually, Ndombeland is much larger than Tupiland. It's just that it was terribly crowded at a very early time."
"And the Burners had spread all over Ndombeland?"
"We think so. But we can't be sure about the vast unknown northeastern part."
"The part that it's taboo to visit? Are explorers and archaeologists afraid to go against the taboo?"
"Didn't I tell you that there's always a good reason for a taboo? In the beginning, nobody went there because everyone who had gone against the taboo either never came back or came back sick and soon died. Now, as usual, modern science has shown that the taboo has a very sound basis. That whole eastern part is contaminated by high radiation. It will be several more millennia before people can go there safely."
"How did it get radioactive?"
"Once again, the scholars can't agree. Some say it was because of the high use of uranium for producing energy. Maybe there were accidents in the energy-producing factories. Others say that there was a great war in which they used weapons based on uranium burning. Still others say it was a combination of the two. We won't know until we can go there and examine the ruins, maybe not even then."
Takwari and his daughter had now arrived at a large sculpture that was partially cleaned off. The archaeologist then unfolded the solar panel that would provide power for his cleaning tool, a special brush that he himself had designed to clear away the shells, the coral and the other material that sea creatures had deposited on things over thousands of years.
"This is what I've been working on," he said. "I'm convinced that, once it is all cleaned off, it will prove my theory."
"Because it will have the M sign?" Kunhatsin asked.
"Possibly. But that may be too much to ask. There are very few of those signs and none of the other three around the complex, and that's why most scholars don't believe that this is a religious complex. But there is another reason."
He pointed out the figure of a man that was the greater part of the sculpture.
"Scholars have found other icons of this same man, and some have his name on them. A name that is part of the name of all three of the complexes. I think he was the prophet or the high priest of the new religion. The proof may be found in the other part of the sculpture, the part we're going to try to finish cleaning off today."
He handed Kunhatsin a small chisel and a hammer.
"You can use this to chip away at the harder parts that my brush won't dislodge. But be careful not to damage the metal of the sculpture itself."
"It looks like a child," Kunhatsin said. "And the man is holding its hand."
"Yes, but look at that hand," Takwari replied. "That's not a human hand. It's fatter than the hand of a child that size, and it only has three fingers and a thumb. I think there's something else to be uncovered here."
Father and daughter then got to work, painstakingly removing the accumulations that obscured the rest of the sculpture. They worked slowly, but each effort revealed a little more of the object.
"That's not a human head either," the archaeologist said. "See how round it is. These are probably ears, but they're disproportionately large for the head and circular, unlike the ears of any known human or other animal. And look at that pointed muzzle ending in a round nose. I know a lot of animals have become extinct since the Burners' era, but there's no fossil evidence of anything like this."
As they cleaned more of the object, working from the top toward the bottom, they discovered that it had a rotund body that was very small in relation to the head. Even more surprising were the arms and legs.
"They're too thin!" Kunhatsin exclaimed. "How could those legs possibly support the weight of the rest of the creature?"
"Insects and spiders have thin legs like that," her father answered. "But they have six or eight of them. Besides, there's no record of any insect or spider anywhere near this large."
"Well, it's a biped. Maybe it's a bird. They have thin legs."
"But it has arms and those strange hands instead of wings. All birds have wings, even the ones that can't fly. No, Kunhatsin, this is not any animal that has ever lived on earth. It's a product of someone's imagination. It has to be how these Burners imagined their god.
"That might help to explain," Takwari continued, "why the new religion was so different from the others. In those they either didn't represent their god at all or they imagined him very much like a man."
When the figure was completely uncovered, Kunhatsin sighed and dropped her chisel and hammer. She was about to express her disappointment over not finding any clear explanation for the creature, god or not, but was distracted by the sound her tools had made when they fell.
"Papa, there's something else here!" she cried out. "Something metal!"
Her father rushed to her side, knelt down and began brushing away at the area where the hammer had fallen.
"It's a metal plaque! It probably has an inscription on it!"
Working hastily in his excitement, he soon was uncovering Burner letters.
"Yes!" he said. "That's the prophet or high priest's name! See! 'WALT DISNEY.' And this must be the god's name! Two words, both starting with the same letter as the religious sign. Here's the proof I've been hoping for. This is a religious complex, dedicated to the new god ...
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!"